Active Spirituality

Proverbs 3: 5-6, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."

I borrowed a book from work called "Active Spirituality A Non-Devotional Guide" by Charles R. Swidndoll.

Honestly, I have never read any of his work. He's spoken at Catalyst Conference before, but I just haven't seen any of his books to read. This is seems really good so far, it's breaking down Proverbs, which I love.

There is something else I want you to wrap your brain around. When God makes a promise, He keeps it. That's hard for us to grasp, sometimes because people let us down so much, we believe God will to. He won't though, and never does.

Swindoll says there for four verbs in these two verses: trust, lean, acknowledge, make straight

Trust in the Hebrew term has the idea of "throwing oneself down, lying extended on the ground, casting all hopes for the present and future upon one another, finding shelter and security there."  That's a pretty vivid picture of trust if you ask me.

LORD is the most intimate and sacred name for God in all the Bible. The book says, "We are to rely fully upon Him, finding our safety and security in Him. He, unlike money, is dependable."

I found it odd that Swindoll said that about money... but there are a couple Scriptures that reference our love for money being the root of all evil. (1 Timothy 6:10 and Hebrews 13:5)

Heart is our "inner being", the Scripture is saying that we are to cast upon our Savior our TOTAL trust, not holding back in any area of our mind or will or feeling. This is something I have personally being on a journey with. I have fully surrendered everything to God. 

Understanding appears first in the Hebrew Bible... literally it says, "upon your understanding do not lean". Don't trust your limited point of view, but trust in the Lord's wisdom.

Leaning... there a couple of songs that come to mind mind, "Lean on Me" and the Hymn where it says, "Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms". The Hebrew word is "shan-ann" which means "to support oneself, as through leaning for assistance."

Acknowledging is recognizing God and we remind ourselves that we aren't alone.

Finally... make straight... what does that mean anyway? In Hebrew it means, "to make smooth, straight, right." That includes the idea of removing obstacles that are in the way.

"In other words, when the LORD is fully relied upon to handle a given situation, He will remove all the obstacles and smooth out our path thoroughly, not half heartedly."

Why do we continue to take things back from God? I am also reading Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson. He mentions how we don't even feel the earth moving, but we wake up each day trusting that we will be safe, have a day and night in a rotation and stay alive. We don't think about the fact that if the earth moved, even a little, we could die.

God keeps the earth spinning like it should, but we don't trust Him with the small stuff?

I love how this Scripture is broken down. I think it helps us understand it more and really apply it to our lives. That is something I will be doing in my next book. I hope to help you apply God's promises to your life so you can live free and trust Him fully.

What are you dealing with that you need to fully trust God with? Give it to Him and let Him make your paths straight. You'll be glad you did.

God bless you today and always!